


Swinging Along The Z Axis

by SpangleBangle



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Asexual Awareness Week, Asexual Character, Demisexual Character, Demisexuality, Fluff, M/M, Talking, Vulnerability, emotional openness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpangleBangle/pseuds/SpangleBangle
Summary: Andrew asks Neil to explain how he swings, and Neil does his best to understand it himself.





	

Trigger Warnings for mild discussion/mention of past rape and physical abuse. There's not much detail and no explicit 'reliving', but it's there and it's mentioned. 

* * *

 

Neil lay on his back on the roof, his head pillowed on Andrew’s thigh as he watched him smoke and stare out into the night. Andrew knew very well that this gave Neil infinite opportunity to stare, but he’d pulled Neil’s head down anyway with nothing more than a muttered ‘shut up’ at Neil’s noise of surprise.

They were mutually not mentioning that fact that Andrew’s other hand was resting in Neil’s hair.

Neil watched the way Andrew’s lips moved around the cigarette. Watched how his fingers cradled it close to his chin, then flexed just enough to bring it back to his chapped lips. How he would seem to inhale with his entire body, drawing the fumes into himself with every complicated muscular interaction of his ribs and back and stomach. The way he’d hold the breath for just a second, his already low-lidded eyes drooping just a fraction more, before pursing his lips and exhaling steadily. He watched how the smoke seemed reluctant to leave Andrew’s lips and dance into the cold air, and he could understand the impulse perfectly.

Andrew’s fingers pressed into his scalp a little, tracing the curve of his skull and twining curls around his fingertips. He didn’t look down at Neil or what his hand was doing, just kept breathing and rewriting every thought Neil had ever fumbled with regarding attraction and other people. And he didn’t even have to try. He just had to sit there, letting Neil stare at him with his heart in his eyes, and Neil felt so lucky to be trusted with even a fraction of his mind, never mind his emotions or trust or touch.

“Nicky sent me a link to something earlier,” Andrew murmured eventually. Neil was far too absorbed in watching his lips and the smoke leaking from them to process the words for some time.

“Mm?” He managed, once his brain had filtered all those noises into something resembling a coherent sentence.

“It’s about asexual identities. He mentioned you.”

Neil hummed again, wondering if Andrew would be overwhelmed and close himself off if Neil could vocalise even half of what he was feeling.

“It made me think.”

And Neil could just lay there and listen to Andrew talking without having to be prompted, sounding relaxed and thoughtful, all night long.

“You’re not listening, are you.”

“I’m listening,” Neil smiled up at him. “I like hearing you talk. I don’t have much to say right now. You can carry on though.”

Andrew sighed, and Neil’s chest clutched for a moment at how the smoke he’d been holding billowed around his face, softening the light around his face and hair so he seemed to glow for a second.

“You asked me once how _this_ could possibly be okay, with my history.”

Oh. Neil corralled his thoughts into some kind of usefulness, knowing he should definitely pay close attention.

“I want to ask you how this is okay with _you_. I don’t understand how you ‘swing’, even now. I want to understand.”

“Still solving for me, hm?” Neil smiled, and let his eyes drift over Andrew’s face as he thought. “I don’t really know, myself. It just… it works, for you. It doesn’t work for anyone else.”

“By ‘it’ I hope you don’t mean your dick.”

“Not completely, no,” Neil reached up to touch the hand in his hair, gently sliding his fingers in the spaces between Andrew’s. “I don’t know how to describe it. How do you describe something you’ve never felt before? I’ve never understood the way other people talk about attraction, about sex. How they would see somebody on the street, some stranger, and immediately think about them naked, or having sex with them, or wanting to do anything with them. I see people on the street, and I can usually spend a moment thinking they look good, or pretty, or fashionable for whatever reason. Sometimes I see people and want to just look at them for a little while, because there’s something about how they _look_ that makes me feel warm. But it’s never about how I want to touch them or do anything with them. Looking is enough. They just… look nice. And I’m happy for them that they look nice.”

He smiled and stroked along Andrew’s fingers. “I don’t understand what drives people to want sex. I really don’t. The only time I’ve ever wanted sexual contact is with you, and that’s… it’s so much more than about the physical. Don’t be offended, but I don’t understand you or Nicky at all, in that way. I don’t understand how you and Roland could work, because it’s just so different from my world view. I know that you would have to trust him, and feel secure with him, and know he would respect your boundaries, because of your history. So I can kind of see that. I can kind of get _that_. But I don’t get how you or he would just… suddenly want to fuck?” Neil frowned and sighed. “I don’t really know how to phrase it. I think what I mean is, I don’t understand how you could have an ‘itch’ or whatever you wanted to scratch. I don’t see how getting physical with somebody you don’t know all that well would work.”

Andrew didn’t reply, though he was looking down at Neil’s face now. His expression was calm, not in the least bit angry or upset. He just listened as Neil tried to make sense of the intangible, and held lightly onto his fingers.

“I don’t understand how Nicky could look at me or another guy and be like. ‘Wow. I want to get naked with this person I don’t know just because they look hot’. I don’t understand how other people feel sexual attraction, or want, or desire, or whatever. When I listen to them talk about it, it just… it’s not something I’ve ever felt the way they describe it. I don’t understand how Allison and Seth could go from hating each other to screwing on the floor. I don’t understand how one-night-stands could work. I’ve never felt an inclination like that. It’s never been an urge that I _had_ to satisfy, something that was just a thing of itself without anyone attached. I’ve got myself off before, but… it was just to deal with the anatomy of it, I guess. Just a physical thing. It didn’t mean anything, or make me feel much at all. I guess that’s maybe weird, I don’t know. That’s just how it is for me.”

Neil shifted a bit, curling his legs up. “When I was on the run with mom…” he had to stop and clear his throat for a moment, then forced himself on. Andrew rubbed gently into his scalp. “When I was growing up on the road, there were girls I kissed. Or who kissed me, I guess. I was curious enough about what the other kids were saying and doing that I wanted to know for myself. But even now I don’t really know what actually drove me to it other than curiosity, and wanting to get out of mom’s control for a bit. I can’t clearly remember whether I wanted it. Whether, with those girls, I said yes because they told me to my face they wanted to kiss me, and I wanted to see what it was like. I can’t remember how I actually felt about them, or the kisses. It always just felt… kind of nothing, really. A bit silly. And I was always so worried about mom finding out, I guess I could never really focus on what was going on. She would, um. She wasn’t pleased, when she found out.”

“What did she do?” Andrew asked with a quiet heat.

Neil met his eyes for a second, saw that Andrew had already guessed the worst. He reached out and took the still-burning cigarette from Andrew’s other hand and breathed in the smoke for a few minutes, trying to reconcile everything together and not entirely succeeding.

“I don’t really want to talk about that right now, Andrew. She’d hit me, okay? I don’t want to discuss it.”

He felt Andrew’s eyes on him like coals pressed to his skin. They were silent for long minutes, far past the time when the cigarette burned out.

“Will you tell me about it another time?” Andrew said, still watching his face.

Neil nodded slowly into his leg and flicked the butt away.

“Keep going with what you were saying,” Andrew said quietly. “You don’t have to talk about your mom. I’m not angry – well. I am. But not with you.”

Neil managed a smile at that little peek behind the curtain, and took a shuddering breath to steady himself. He was just able to give hints, and know Andrew would fill in the blanks. He couldn’t force himself to say the words outright. Her ghost was too close.

“I don’t know how much of how I feel about sex was informed or changed by how _she_ felt about it. I don’t know if it all just fucked me up out of fear, or if I was like this already. I don’t know if I’ll ever know for sure. I’m trying to be okay with that. I don’t know.”

Andrew squeezed his hand suddenly, and Neil felt his breath catch as he realised that Andrew probably knew what he meant by that. He wondered how long it had taken Andrew to reconcile how he felt about guys with what had been done to him from such a young age. How much work he was still doing, to be able to touch Neil at all.

“I don’t understand how people are attracted to girls,” Andrew offered quietly. “I don’t understand Matt or Kevin or Aaron that way. It doesn’t work for me, like that. I’ve never felt it, like you said.”

Neil’s smile felt a little easier, and he brought Andrew’s hand down out of his hair to kiss his palm for a moment in thanks. He caught Andrew’s surprised blink at the gesture, but he didn’t pull away.

“With you, though… it’s still kind of a mystery with you. I think you’re the most compelling and honestly beautiful person I’ve ever seen. It’s why I stare so much, y’know. Because when I see you, it’s so different from how I’ve ever seen anybody else. It’s like you’re the only person in colour in a world of grey. I want to touch you, and kiss you, and be touched by you. But it’s not _because_ I want to get off, or whatever. Being close with you makes me happy. It makes me feel safe. It makes me feel honoured that you trust me with that, after everything you’ve been through too. It’s overwhelming and wonderful and honestly takes the breath from my lungs. I can get excited with you – that was a revelation in itself, by the way, did I ever say – because you make me feel so _much_ , and the stimulation is good, and it all kind of works together?”

Neil looked away from Andrew’s cool gaze, knowing his cheeks were warming and there was a stupid grin growing on his face. “Touching with you is like… it’s like the keys. It’s showing how much you feel like… you feel like home, to me.” He paused, his voice growing quiet again. “You’re safety and a home and everything I never knew I could want or have. When you kiss me, it’s that. When I touch your hair, it’s that. It’s everything you mean to me all clumsily bundled up in whatever I can do with my hands or my mouth. I really enjoy doing sex things with you. But the only reason I want to, or feel it at all, is because of _all_ the things you mean to me, all together. I think that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Andrew slowly dropped his hand to cup the side of Neil’s face to pull Neil’s gaze back to him, his own expression inscrutable as Neil blinked up at him. They watched each other’s eyes, and Neil knew that Andrew was battling with himself, with the kneejerk reaction to deny it all meaning anything whatsoever, to distance himself from whatever this huge and terrifying thing was between them before it could turn to a nightmare, like everything else always had for him. Neil knew Andrew desperately wanted to make some kind of disparaging comment, maybe even to just walk away without a word. Neil knew he probably felt angry and confused by the sheer weight of all of Neil’s words, and that he might not know how to cope with emotion that strong after so long feeling numb.

And because Neil knew that, he knew exactly how much Andrew meant it when he moved his thumb just a little to brush against Neil’s lips, and told him, again, to stay.


End file.
